


What We Owe to Each Other

by aibari



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Monster Jon (sort of), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, dasira side pairing, graphic descriptions of death, the good place AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21644746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibari/pseuds/aibari
Summary: Martin Blackwood opened his eyes.WELCOME!, the wall in front of him exclaimed, in a cheerful, green font, EVERYTHING IS FINE.Martin wakes up in the Good Place. Jon learns to be human. Everything is (hopefully, probably, definitely) fine.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Melanie King & Tim Stoker
Comments: 103
Kudos: 339
Collections: RaeLynn's Epic Rec List





	1. The First

**Author's Note:**

> Got this idea while writing my thesis and could not stop thinking about it. I had to put it away for a bit because, well, academia!!, but I'm handing in my thesis today which means I am! free! free to laugh to myself about eldritch Jon trying to fake being a person.
> 
> In this chapter: tgp-appropriate discussions of death, a little bit of weird body ... stuff, tma-levels of dubious consent re having your own death narrated to you by a hungry afterlife gremlin.

The Archivist is in its office.

The office is large and clean and almost empty, except for the desk and two chairs and the Archivist itself.

It is a very new office. Dust has not yet begun to settle on its windowsills.

Even so, it belonged to someone else before the Archivist.

The Archivist knows of her in the distant, dis passionate way it knows of most things, but it did not _know_ her. Not in any meaningful way.

She does not matter.

All that matters is the Neighbourhood and the Plan she left behind.

However disorganized they may be.

The Archivist sighs, metaphysically speaking. It does not have what one might traditionally call lungs.

It must make them first.

Making lungs – making a body – is an unpleasant business, but it must be done. Carefully, the Archivist furls and furls and furls its wings, a slow, hourglass slide of feathers. Its rings contract and fold, a little rustily. One by one it closes its eyes, until only two remain.

It makes a body, with lungs.

It makes a face around its eyes.

It takes a moment to remember the shape of the mouth.

Then, with clumsy hands, it draws back the chair behind the desk, and becomes Jonathan Sims.

He sits down.

Time to start.

-

Martin Blackwood opened his eyes.

WELCOME!, the wall in front of him exclaimed, in a cheerful, green font, EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Martin stared at it, and then the room. It looked like a waiting room, maybe, and it was more than half the size of his flat. There were leafy, potted plants in the corners. Porcelain plants, Martin thought, vaguely, though he wasn't sure.

He shifted awkwardly. The white leather of the couch squeaked when he did.

He didn't know where he was.

Which was fine. It was _fine_. He just had to stay calm.

He tried to remember what he had been doing before he came here, and found that he couldn't. It was like someone had scrubbed out part of his memory, like someone had run a magnet over the magnetic tape of his mind.

That was ... okay, that wasn't _great_. Martin tapped his fingers against the side of the couch.

The last thing he remembered was going in to work. It was early spring, sunny and cold and a bit windy. He'd forgotten his scarf. It was a Tuesday.

Was it still Tuesday?

There were no windows or clocks in the room. He wasn't wearing a watch. He was - yep - still wearing the clothes he'd worn to work today, if it was still Tuesday, but his phone wasn't in his pockets, so he couldn't use it to check, or call anyone, or –

Not that this was a situation that needed help.

Probably.

It was probably fine.

His palms were getting sweaty. He tried to surreptitiously wipe them off on the upholstery.

Maybe his supervisor had finally found out about -

The door to his left opened, and a short, skinny man with horn-rimmed glasses and a flat expression poked his head out to look at him. He seemed to be made up mostly of angles.

"Martin Blackwood?" the man asked. His voice was deeper than Martin had thought it would be, and gravelly at the edges.

"Yuh -" Martin tried, but the word stuck in his throat. He swallowed, and tried again. "Yeah. Yes."

The man gave him a smile, or something like it.

"Please come in," he said, and stepped back into the room he had come from. Martin rose and followed him, distantly surprised that his legs were obeying him.

The room on the other side looked like an office, or at least the bare bones of one.

It was airy and clean and almost entirely empty.

The man stood awkwardly by the desk, holding out a hand.

After a moment of confusion, Martin took it.

"Jonathan Sims," said the man. Behind his glasses, his eyes were a deep, rich brown.

"I, uh, yeah. Martin," said Martin stupidly. “Nice to meet you.”

"Please," said Jonathan, and gestured to one of the chairs. "Sit down."

Martin did.

Then, with an air of self-conscious, awkward formality, Jonathan told him that he had died.

"Sorry," Martin said, cutting into what sounded like a rehearsed speech about - about neighbourhood planning, or something. "I'm _what_?"

Jonathan stopped and frowned at him, like he had expected Martin to be better at this. It would almost have been cute if it hadn't been so condescending.

"Dead," Jonathan said. He paused, and then tilted his head, birdlike, almost eager. "Would you like to know how it happened?"

Martin opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"Sure," he said. He didn't know what else to do.

Jonathan looked at him then. Really _looked_ at him, less a movement if the eye and more a movement of ... focus. The weight of it was almost physical, pressing against Martin's skull.

"You were alone," he said, and his voice was different, too; _thicker_ , somehow, and deeper, filled with a strange resonance that made Martin's teeth itch, like a dark river or a tuning fork, and that didn't make any sense, he was mixing his metaphors, but Jonathan was still talking:

"It was dark in your flat. You had been boiling water for a cup of tea when the power went out - "( - and here Jonathan gave a small, self-depreciating laugh, but it was _Martin's_ laugh, and suddenly Martin was there again, back in his flat and sighing at the darkness in his tiny, run-down kitchen -) " - and you were thinking that at least the water was done boiling this time. For some reason, the electricity was always going in your flat, no matter how often the landlord said he'd fix it.

"You thought about the impossibility of moving as you made a cup, steeping it for just the right amount of minutes. Then, cup in hand, you walked toward the sofa. You thought maybe you could light some candles, read some poetry. Make a night of it.

"It wasn't very dark in the flat, even with the lights out. The sodium yellow of the street lamps outside cut across the floor and cast long, sharp shadows onto the walls.

"It wasn't that dark. The bend in the carpet was clearly visible. You would have seen it, if you weren't thinking about the candles or the poetry, but instead you tripped on it, and it sent you sprawling.

"It would have been fine, if it hadn't been for the coffee table. It might have been just an awkward fall and a smashed mug of tea.

"But it wasn't.

"Your forehead hit the hard edge of the table with a sharp crack, and then you hit the floor. The mug shattered under your weight, but by that point, you were already unconscious.

“The impact didn't kill you; in the end, it was the loss of blood that did it.

"If someone had found you earlier, you may have lived.

"But no-one did.

"So it goes," Jonathan said with finality, like that was a thing that people said, and his voice was normal again, no longer that dark, moonlit river. He leaned back in his chair and hummed a little to himself, unconsciously and somehow ... satisfied. Sated.

"Um," Martin said. A part of him was still back in his apartment, hazy and cold from blood loss and head trauma. He realized with a start that he was crying. Not - not sobbing, or anything, not making any sound, but _crying_ , tears rolling down his cheeks and soaking into his jumper.

Jonathan was still looking at him. Martin realised he hadn't once seen him blink.

The silence pooled between them.

Martin wiped his face. He would have tried to do it surreptitiously, but it wasn't like he could really hide.

It was fine.

It was _fine._

Jonathan was still looking at him, but his gaze felt … disinterested.

Like he had gotten what he wanted from him.

Martin suppressed a shudder, forced a smile. "You were talking about the neighbourhood?"

-

The neighbourhood was bright and cheerful, bursting with coffee shops and pizzerias and little storybook buildings where people lived. It was like ... the platonic ideal of a nice neighbourhood. The exact average of a million village planners' wet dreams.

They walked down the broad, cobbled streets, past barrels of bright pink and purple flowers and a large, marble fountain. Martin still felt unsteady, off-balance and shaky, but if Jonathan noticed, he didn't say anything.

"You can drink the water," he said instead, nodding at the fountain, like that was a normal thing that Martin might have wondered about. "It will taste like whatever you want it to."

"Okay," Martin said. "Thank ... you?"

Jonathan gave him another smile that wasn't. He lead them toward a coffee shop, and opened the door. A bell tinkled. "After you."

HIGHER GROUND, the sign on the building read, in a curling, elaborate script.

A pavement sign outside listed the daily specials.

Several of the specials seemed to be cold brew.

 _Okay_ , Martin thought. Maybe they'd have tea.

-

They did, in fact, have tea. Martin had stared at the staggeringly large selection with wide eyes before going for his usual.

He kind of regretted it now. He had poured in a bit too much milk, which was fine. The taste sent him back to the memory of his darkened flat again, which wasn't.

Carefully, he set the cup back down on the table.

"If you need anything," said Jonathan, who had ordered a single cup of black coffee and seemingly already forgotten about it, "please do not hesitate to call on my Assistants."

He said it just like that, Assistants, like it was capitalised. Martin didn't comment.

"All you have to do is call them by name," Jonathan said. Then, as if to demonstrate, "Basira, Sasha."

And just like that, the table was a little bit fuller.

“ _Ah!_ ” Martin yelled. If he'd been holding the tea, it would have gone flying.

There was a woman on either side of him. One of them was tall and calm-faced, wearing a hijab and a long, brightly coloured skirt. The other was shorter, and her long, brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. She was wearing a pair of thick, round glasses.

"Hi, Jon," said the woman with the glasses.

"You must be Martin," said the other woman. She smiled. "I'm Basira."

"Nice to meet you," Martin said. "And, erm, you must be Sasha?"

"That's me," Sasha said. "We're mostly here to support the Archivist - that's Jon - but if you need anything -"

"Information, objects, artifacts," Basira said.

"- you can just ask us, and we'll see what we can do."

"... Archivist?" Martin said.

Jonathan coughed awkwardly. "Running a neighbourhood is, ah, about ninety percent paperwork."

Then he gave a small, nervous laugh. Martin stared at him.

"Right," he said.

"Anyway," said Jonathan, "I am sure you would like to see where you are going to live."

-

As they walked, Jonathan told him about the points, and how you earned and lost them, and about how Martin had been so, so good that he had managed, somehow, to earn enough of them to get into the Good Place. Every word felt like another nail in some proverbial coffin.

"As you know," Jonathan said, rote, as though he was reading the words from a piece of paper, "your work as a civil rights lawyer has saved countless lives, and the community outreach ..."

He was still talking, but Martin had stopped listening, because that was wrong.

The information was wrong, sure. Martin had never even _studied_ law, or been particularly involved in the community other than the occasional arts and crafts class at his local community centre. He had been an archival assistant at a moderately well-funded research institution and had been hired on a forged resume, for God's sake.

But there was something about the _way_ Jonathan was saying it that was wrong, too. Martin couldn't put his finger on it, but there was ... something wasn't right.

"... It helped secured your place here," Jonathan was saying. The road curved lazily around a large, artificial pond; the sun shone cheerily down at them and made the water shine like silver.

"I didn't do it for that," Martin said, humbly, because he didn't know what else to do. At least lying about his credentials was familiar.

He glanced at Jonathan, and the look on his face nearly made Martin stop walking.

He was frowning at him with a furious intensity, eyes sharp, mouth twisting sourly for a brief second and then pressing down into a disapproving line. He looked at Martin like he _disgusted_ him, like Martin had done something horrible –

Martin suppressed a shiver.

Disgust was familiar, too.

-

The house was small and modern, and looked like it cost more than twenty years of Martin's salary. He hit his head on the door frame on the way in.

"The house is tailored to your specifications," Jonathan said, while Martin was still glaring at it. "The report indicated that you liked things to be ... simple and clean."

Which were not words Martin would ever have used to describe his own living preferences, but which definitely covered the room. The ceiling was low, and everything was made up of sharp, clean lines, from the furniture to the geometric paintings on the walls. 

Except for the paintings, everything was white.

A movement in one of the corners of the room caught his eye.

There was a woman standing there, under a particularly garish cubist nightmare of a painting. Martin hadn't noticed her at first; it was like she had blended into the background. Now, weight shifted forward and arms crossed, it was hard to see how he could ever have missed her. She was around average height, with short, blond hair and hard eyes, and there was something ... sharp about her, something simmering right beneath the surface.

"We had the art specially sourced," Sasha said, as she and Basira came in behind them. She was smiling.

"It's nice," Martin said dutifully.

"Hm," said Jonathan, but Martin couldn't tell what it meant.

The woman in the corner took a step forward.

"Ah," Jonathan said, like it was a detail he'd forgotten to mention, "this is your soulmate."

"I'm sorry," Martin said, stomach twisting, "my _what_?"

"Soulmate, apparently," the woman said, in a flat, sarcastic tone of voice, like she was wondering the same thing. "Daisy."

"Martin," said Martin, and then, on reflex, "nice to meet you."

She scoffed, a soft, back-of-the-throat sound that wasn't so much unkind as it was disbelieving.

"Anyway," Basira said, a little strained, "there will be a welcoming party tonight - "

Somewhere in the back of Martin's mind, something shifted. A thought slid into place like a foot slipping off a ledge.

"This is the Bad Place," his mouth said, before his brain could catch up.

Everyone was staring at him, but all he could do was repeat it.

"Oh my god," he said, weakly, incredulously. "That's it, isn't it? This is the Bad Place."

Because there was just no way, was there. There was no way Martin Blackwood, archival assistant with a fake resume and barely any life outside of it, could ever qualify for the Good Place.

And maybe it could have been a mistake. Maybe it was some sort of cosmic filing error, a mix-up between two Martin Blackwoods who died in the exact same way at the exact same time –

(All the little pieces lined up, every wrong feeling over the course of the day: Jonathan, making him relive his own death in painful, perfect detail; saying "as you know" like bad exposition to an ignorant audience; the look on his face when Martin played along with it; Daisy, his _soulmate –_ )

But he didn't think so.

"That's ridiculous, Martin," Jonathan said. His face was tight.

" _Is it?_ " Martin said.

Daisy shifted where she stood, like she was straining against herself to keep still. Her eyes glittered dangerously under the halogen lights. "Don't think it is," she said. "Sounds like you might be right on the money.”

Jonathan stared at them, mouth opening and closing. “You – _what_ – _?!_ ”

Basira sighed. “Looks like we may have to restart this one, boss.”

Martin glared at her, and Jonathan, and Sasha, who was looking awkwardly down at her feet. “How about instead of doing anything else, you  _tell us what is going on_ ?”

Jonathan sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he said. “Alright. You're right, of course.”

Then he raised his hand.

Then he snapped his fingers.


	2. The Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin goes to a party.

Martin Blackwood opened his eyes.

WELCOME!, the wall in front of him exclaimed, in a cheerful, green font, EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Martin stared at it, and then the room. It looked like a waiting room, maybe, and it was more than half the size of his flat. There were leafy, potted plants in the corners. Porcelain plants, Martin thought, vaguely, though he wasn't sure.

He shifted awkwardly, and then the door to his left slammed open, so hard and sudden that he nearly fell off the couch. A short, thin man in horn-rimmed glasses stared down at him. There was something slightly dishevelled about him; his brown eyes were very wide, and strands of his hair was starting to come loose from where it was tied back.

“Um,” said Martin, after what felt like years. “Is everything okay?”

The man seemed to snap back into himself.

“Yes,” he said stiffly. “Martin Blackwood?”

“Yeah,” Martin said, smiling nervously. “That's me.”

The man smiled back. It looked uncomfortable on his face, like it was having second thoughts. “You are probably wondering why you are here.”

“I – ” Martin said, and then stopped. He remembered going in to work this morning ( _was_ it this morning?) but after that, there was just a whole big void of … of _nothing._ Like his mind was a stretch of magnetic tape wiped clean. He closed his mouth with an audible click, swallowed, opened it again. Said, in an awkward, small voice he wished didn't still sound like him, “yeah.”

“Come in to my office,” said the man, and stepped back into the room he had come from. Martin followed him.

“Who are you, anyway?” he asked, and hoped he wasn't supposed to already know. The man turned around to look at him. The midday sun shone in through the office windows, lighting up his profile, shining in his hair. Martin felt suddenly short of breath.

“Jonathan Sims,” said the man. He gestured for Martin to sit down in the chair in front of the desk.

“Nice to meet you,” Martin said, and sat down.

Jonathan looked away. His lip curled. “Yes, well.”

“S-so,” Martin said, “what's going on?”

“This will probably not surprise you, Mister Blackwood,” Jonathan said, with a stiff formality that sent warning signs all the way up Martin's spine, “but you are in The Good Place.”

He gave him an expectant look. Martin stared back.

“The … good place?”

Jonathan cleared his throat. “I … suppose you might think of it as something like Heaven.”

“I – hang on,” Martin said. “I'm _dead_?”

“Yes.”

“How did – _what_?”

“Would you like to,” Jonathan said, and then stopped. He shook himself a little, and gave a small, annoyed _hmm_. Finally, he said, in a clipped tone of voice, “You had a fall in your flat. It did not end well.”

Martin stared at him. His stomach turned queasily as the faint memory of electrical failure and close encounters with his coffee table stirred in the back of his mind.

“Oh,” he said, very faintly.

“Yes, well,” Jonathan said, adjusting what looked like a tape recorder on top of the desk. “Death is rarely pleasant.”

It was hard to argue with that, so Martin didn't. After a brief silence, Jonathan gave an irritated sigh.

“Shall we go and see the neighbourhood?” he asked. “I will fill you in on how things work here while we walk.”

-

After the walk - after the tea and the points system and the sharply decorated house; after introductions to Basira and Sasha and, somehow, his soulmate - there was a party.

"To welcome the newest arrivals to the neighbourhood," Jonathan said, with another grin that wasn't. He seemed to have a lot of them. “A new couple arranged it.”

"Is there a dress code?" Martin asked. It seemed like the sort of thing a functional human being might ask.

"There are clothes for you in the bedroom," Sasha said, and she was smiling, too, eyes bright and excited behind the thick, round rims of her glasses.

Which is how, two hours later, Martin found himself in a perfectly tailored, dark blue suit, staring up at a chandelier that looked like someone had eaten a mirror and then thrown up all over the ceiling.

"Some place," Daisy muttered beside him, somewhere between derisive and suspicious. Her eyes flicked around the room like she was cataloguing exits, and then settled, finally, on Jonathan and Basira, who were having a quiet conversation on the other side of the gigantic entrance hall.

"You could fit my flat three times over in here," Martin muttered back, in the spirit of small talk.

"Hmm," said Daisy. Her eyes glittered, sharp and dangerous in the brightness of the room. She didn't say anything else.

It was ... not creepy, exactly, but unsettling, how she held herself. Even in a dress she looked like she was straining against some barely-held leash. Being around her put him just a little bit on edge.

"I, uh, I'll just be taking a walk around...?" He said. It came out kind of faltering and uncertain, but Daisy didn't seem to notice as he stepped away.

-

The house was full of people. Every single one of them seemed to be smiling and chatting and clinking glasses of champagne.

It was overwhelming.

Martin managed to keep calm for long enough to pick up a plate of tiny cucumber sandwiches before the need to find a quiet room to hide in became too strong. As casually as he could, he stepped away from the main hall, and then he kept walking. It felt like any second, someone was going to stop him and tell him he had to go back to the party, or –

Or _what_ , exactly?

He wasn't sure. Something bad, probably.

It was irrational.

This was the Good Place.

Nothing bad was going to happen here.

He kept repeating it in his brain, but it felt flatter every time, more washed out and less true. He tried not to examine why too closely. After all, the only thing that had gone wrong here was him.

He turned a corner, and found himself in an empty, darkened corridor.

It looked like it should have been quiet, but it wasn't.

A door halfway down the corridor stood ajar, letting out a thin sliver of golden light. From where he was standing, Martin could hear ... _something_. He walked closer. It sounded like voices, and, impossibly, video game music.

Before he could stop himself, he was pushing the door open.

Two heads turned to stare at him. They were sitting on a squashed, pea-green couch. A superhero fighting game played on the giant flat screen TV in front of them.

"I, uh," Martin said. "Sandwiches?"

"What is this, room service?" the woman asked, laughing. A strand of her chin-length black hair caught on her lower lip.

The man leaned over the side of the couch with an exaggerated smirk, dark eyes low-lidded and flirtatious. "Looking for trouble?"

Martin made a decision, and stepped inside, leaving the door open. "Just avoiding the party."

The woman gave a short bark of laughter. "Join the club."

"Come and sit down," the man said, dropping the flirtatious act for a more general brand of friendliness. "We have alcohol."

Martin sat down at the edge of the couch. The man handed him a bottle of beer.

"Timothy Stoker," he said, "but you can call me Tim. And this is Melanie King."

"Hey," Melanie said, jostling him with an elbow, "I can introduce myself. I'm Melanie King of Crushing Tim Stoker at Video Games, _nice to meet you_."

“Martin Blackwood,” Martin said. Melanie leaned over Tim to snatch a pale crescent of cucumber sandwich from his plate.

“Love these,” she said, holding it up like she was inspecting it for flaws. “Eating them always feels like stepping on the grave of someone old and rich.”

“Can you still step on other people's graves when you're in one yourself?” Tim asked, faux-philosophically.

Melanie rolled her eyes. “ _Figuratively_. You know, like a metaphor, publishing guy?”

“ Oh,  _ savage _ _ , _ ”  Tim said sarcastically, and laughed. “If we weren't already dead, I'm sure I'd need to be resuscitated from that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Melanie said, and took a bite of the sandwich, crunching the cucumber between her teeth.

“So, Martin,” Tim said, turning to give him an appraising look. “How are you finding the afterlife so far?”

Martin took a sip of his beer to buy himself some time. It was pretty good. He thought about his soulmate, who was a woman and constantly vibrating on the edge of lashing out, tightly leashed and dangerous; he thought about being (probably, impossibly,) the wrong Martin Blackwood. Then he pushed it to the side, and made himself smile. "Great! It's great so far. I know it's a small thing, but I was actually really surprised by the, um, tea selection? I guess I'd never actually thought that would be a  _thing_ in the Good Place. It's just that it's such a, well, such an  _everyday_ thing, you know? Which, hah, does kind of make you wonder how the tea is made here, like … like, is there a place in the Good Place that's just tea bushes, or is it just kind of blinked into existence?”

“You know,” Melanie said, leaning forward. “It's pretty sad if the tea's the part you're the most excited about.”

“I like tea,” Martin said, more defensively than he meant to.

“ _My_ favourite thing about the Good Place so far,” Tim said brightly, throwing his arms over both of their shoulders, “is probably how some prink told me about how I died horribly and then made me host this forking awful party because of my -” (- he made air quotes; one of his fingers brushed Martin's cheek - ) “- “ _vast experience”_ from the publishing industry.”

“ _You're_ hosting this thing?” Martin asked, and then, “wait, did you say _prink_?”

“They won't let you say any _bad words_ here,” Tim said. “Can't be having with that kind of naughty behaviour in the Good Place, you know.”

“It's censorship!” Melanie said, throwing out an arm and nearly hitting Tim in the face. “And I helped with the hosting. The cucumber sandwiches? All me.”

“You can have another if you want,” Martin said, holding out the plate toward her.

“Ta,” she said, and took another sandwich. “Tim overruled me on the horror film marathon, though.”

“Don't get me wrong, I love horror as much as anyone,” Tim said, grinning, “but somehow I feel like it wouldn't be “classy” enough to fit the brief.”

“Hey,” Melanie said, “I'm just saying, it's irony, that's _plenty_ classy.”

“I think – ” Tim said, but the door behind them slammed all the way open before he could say what he thought. Martin upended the plate into his lap, but by some miracle managed not to drop the beer along with it.

Jonathan Sims stood in the doorway. His eyes were very wide, and his face was doing something … complicated. For a moment, he looked almost  _scared_ , but then his expression shifted into a scowl. There was a pressure in the room, like the air before a storm, like a thousand eyes staring. The lamps flickered and brightened and began to whine – 

And then it stopped. The lamps were normal. The pressure was gone. Jonathan crossed his arms and gave them a sour look.

“You need to get back to the party,” he said.

Martin opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Next to him, Tim laughed. His arm was rigid where it rested over Martin's shoulder.

“Mandatory party attendance,” he said, rolling his eyes. “What is this, the Bad Place?”

Jonathan turned pale. His eyes began to flicker, moving from the ceiling to the wall and back again, over and over. A terrible certainty began to form and then solidify in Martin's mind.

“N-no,” Jonathan said. “No, that's. Don't be ridiculous. This is the Good Place.”

“Oh my God,” Tim said, like the words were punched out of him. Melanie made a small, back-of-the-throat sound that could have meant anything.

The words bubbled up in Martin's throat before he could stop them, sticky like fear and hushed like a whisper: “This _is_ the Bad Place.”

Jonathan gave them a look that was – 

It was – 

Martin shuddered. He couldn't help it.

Jonathan sighed angrily. “Fine.”

He snapped his fingers.


	3. Supplemental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jon_sims_fail_compilation.mov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kudos and the super lovely comments so far! This chapter took a long time for a number of reasons, not least of which being the length, but I hope you like it!
> 
> To all the commenters laughing at Jon being shit at his job: u were right.
> 
> No real warnings here except for references to canon-typical violence. If the format gets confusing, let me know!

**POSTMORTEM, SECOND ITERATION.**

[CLICK.]

[SOUND OF TAPE RECORDER RUNNING.]

**ARCHIVIST**

[HEAVY SIGH.]

( _muffled, under his breath_ ) Disastrous.

[BRIEF PAUSE.]

( _no longer muffled_ ) For the sake of keeping everything in order, I will be recording these ... _this_ statement as a ... postmortem.

[SHUFFLING PAPERS.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Postmortem, second iteration. Statement of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

[THE ARCHIVIST TAKES A DEEP BREATH.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Everything was fine until the party. I know we had some … difficulties during the first iteration, but I believe they were all avoided to a satisfactory degree this time. I am not … used to dealing with people in this way. My job typically involves a more direct form of interfacing with human suffering. Having this shape – being in this body – is … inefficient.

( _salty, with audible air quotes_ ) But, yes, _necessary_ for the nature of this _deception._

[HE PAUSES.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

When you put me in charge of the neighbourhood, Elias, you gave me a detailed plan of how the neighbourhood should be run, and events that might most effectively cause suffering and moral quandaries for our four mortals. I am trying my best to do as you have asked, but I fear that they will not be easily led.

( _rote, as if reciting something carefully memorised_ ) The party is important. If it works as it should, it will seed further discord and social discomfort. It will create openings that we can exploit in our … ( _derisively_ ) _experiment_.

[SIGH.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

… So what went wrong? I believe the main failure lies in allowing three of the four mortals to leave the main hall of the house during the party. In this iteration, I will instruct Basira and Sasha to assist in keeping them close at all times. Perhaps we should also make the doors leading to the rest of the house temporarily impossible to open.

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, THIRD ITERATION.**

[…]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Making the doors impossible to open … was, I'll admit, a bit of a mistake.

It started well enough. Tim and Melanie attempted to sneak off early, but when they were unable to open the door to the upper east hallway, they quickly moved to the pop-up bar, where they drank copious amounts of alcohol and discussed whether or not a house in the afterlife could be haunted in increasingly loud voices. At one point, the discussion devolved into what can be best described as a drunken brawl, though they were quick to develop some kind of arbitrary, aggressively competitive points system.

Then, of course, _Martin_ ruined everything. After failing to get into the upper east hallway, he proceeded to attempt to access every nearby door. At this point, Tim realised what he was doing, and attempted to involve him in a drunken conversation about “haunted ghost doors”. I attempted to redirect their attention to something else by stepping in, and …

Well. Here we are.

Suffice it to say that if it had been within my power to change out a human in this experiment, I would have done so by now.

As it is, all we can do is change our strategy. The doors will stay unlocked. We will just have to herd the humans more effectively this time.

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, EIGHTEENTH ITERATION.**

[…]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

No! _No_. The party is a disaster. We tried the doors … we tired herding them … we tried alternate house layouts, we have put throngs people in every room, we have removed the video games … it always ends the same way.

… _Martin._ He is not always the one to figure it out, but the bumbling fool is somehow always at the centre of it, the lynchpin upon which the whole disaster turns. He'll say something, and a switch will flip behind Tim or Melanie's eyes, or Daisy will go from … on edge to feral, and they will _know_. Or he blurts it out, throwing the words out like some idiot guest tripping over a centrepiece and _ruining_ it, smashing the entire careful construction to bits without any _idea_ what it took to put it there in the first place.

[SIGH.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

The amount of rebooting we are doing over this night is becoming untenable. I cannot justify spending more time on it when I can see no good way to fix the problem, Elias. Basira and Sasha are equally lost on this matter.

( _small, frustrated laugh_ ) I suppose the solution might just be to let them hide away in that room and play games without disturbing them.

At this point, I will try anything that might allow us to stop living through the same forking evening again.

[…]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-FIRST ITERATION.**

[…]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Because of the persistent problems with the wind causing the neighbourhood demons to clip into the environment and then rapidly shift back and forth between their true forms and their human suits, we have no choice but to scrap Flying Day. I realise this is massively unpopular, but we cannot afford the humans seeing a demon in its true form. It really stretches what little plausible deniability we have.

[DECISIVE SCRATCH OF PEN ON PAPER.]

[SOUND OF DRINKING.]

[MUG CLINKS AGAINST DESK.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

I believe we may also have made another miscalculation. We paired the humans up and told them they were “soulmates” to cause friction and low-grade misery, to … well. To _some_ success, certainly. While Tim and Melanie have been getting on terrifyingly well, they also have a shared capacity for chaos that is … worth looking into exploiting for causing further minor misery.

When it comes to Daisy and Martin … they both seem to find the other's company suitably uncomfortable. It is, in theory, the perfect match.

However...

The beginning of the fifty-first iteration went well, despite some ... minor hiccups. By the end of the second week, I was almost starting to relax.

It was a mistake, of course. I should have known it was.

I have purposefully been avoiding having too much direct contact with the humans this time around, letting Basira and Sasha stand for most of the interaction with them. However, at the end of the first two weeks, Martin approached me in my office.

He was terribly awkward about it, stammering and going on irritatingly inconsequential tangents about favouring coffee or tea.

I told him, as nicely as I could, to get to the point. He looked at me, and it was strange. Up until this point, he had mostly avoided looking me in the eye. I am unsure if it was social awkwardness or ... something else.

No matter what it was, he was meeting my eyes now, head-on and serious.

Throughout all these iterations, I have seen many sides of him. When we interact, he is often uncomfortable and rambling to cover it up. If he is the one who figures it out, he is _scared_. I can taste it on him. ( _beat)_ Really, I can always taste it on him. He is a man who lives with fear.

[HE PAUSES.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

But now, suddenly, he was different. The fear was still there - I do not know if it ever _truly_ leaves him - but there was a calm, quiet resolve to him that ... well. I didn't know what to do with it.

"Jon," he said. "I like men."

Then he laughed, a little desperately. For a moment, I was worried he might have been … ( _audible air quotes_ ) “coming on to me”, and I began to explain that I was not interested, but he stopped me before I could finish.

“This isn't about you, Jon,” he said. He drew a long, shuddering breath, and went quiet. I was about to suggest that he go get himself a cup of something to drink, but before I could speak, he had started talking again.

“Why is Daisy my soulmate, Jon?” he asked.

I could have told him it was fate. I could have told him a lot of things. _Should_ have told him a lot of things.

[A LONGER PAUSE.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

I have been practising deception, throughout the past iterations. I do not like it, and I would prefer to avoid it, if at all possible, but I know, I _know,_ that some things are … an unfortunate necessity. I knew what untruths to give him.

The words died in my throat at the look on his face. It felt as though, in that moment, _he_ was the Archivist, and I was the one being read; as though he was assessing me, cutting to the quick and filing away components of my being into the correct places.

It was … _deeply_ unpleasant.

His eyes never wavered as I attempted and failed to stammer out an explanation.

“You know what _I_ think, Jon?” he said in the end, and his voice was losing its calm, brightening into something terrified and manic and _angry_. “I don't think Daisy and I _are_ soulmates. _I_ think you set us up like this to make us miserable. We – I think – that's what all of this is about, isn't it? All this constant, in-the-background _misery?_ ”

I couldn't speak. Even if I had needed to breathe, I would not have been breathing.

Martin smiled at me.

“This is the Bad Place,” he said, with a horrible certainty, “and we won't stick around for it.”

[HE SAYS NOTHING FOR A VERY LONG TIME.]

I reset the humans immediately, of course. Basira helped locate the rest of them at the train station, getting ready to board a train to the Medium Place. If I had not been in this human suit, I might have Seen it earlier.

[SIGH.]

The soulmate issue is ... the arrangement was intended to cause discomfort, but I hadn't expected it to be so ... well. ( _beat)_ It is, or should be, easily solvable. Just another variable to adjust.

[…]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-SECOND ITERATION.**

[…]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

The attempt to solve Martin's soulmate issue by replacing Daisy with Chad –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-THIRD ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Greg –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-FOURTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Jim –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-FIFTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Theophilius the Dreary (Theo for short) –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-SIXTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Justin –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-SEVENTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Thomapher –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-EIGHTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Martin, making the human Martin have to be refered to and refer to himself only as "Martin Two" –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, FIFTY-NINTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Brad –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, SIXTIETH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Grim –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, SIXTY-FIRST ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– a ( _with distaste_ ) very fluffy, yet somewhat badly house-trained golden retriever –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, SIXTY-SECOND ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Chad again –

[...]

**POSTMORTEM, SIXTY-THIRD ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

– Mikaele has been yet another failure. This might perhaps have gone better if Mikaele had not constantly been trying to open a cursed object (store) in their shared bedroom, but _(sarcastically)_ who can say!

Matching Daisy with Candice has been equally disastrous, though mostly in the sense that she keeps hoarding all the knives in their house and growling. ( _beat)_ Or is that a success? I am honestly not sure.

Either way, we cannot seem to find a way around the problem of Martin. The man always seems to -

[HE PAUSES.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

I asked Sasha for her input. She laughed at me and asked if I wasn't overthinking i-

[DING!]

**BASIRA**

Sasha said you were having some trouble.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _squawk_ ) Basira! I was just about to – did she?

**BASIRA**

( _amused_ ) She said something about a … cursed garage sale?

**ARCHIVIST**

( _grumpy)_ Technically a yard sale.

**BASIRA**

(very _amused_ ) Hm.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _testy_ ) Yes, well. _If you don't mind_ , I could use some help with this whole … soulmate disaster. Do you think we should pair Martin up with Jim again? That seemed to … _almost_ work.

**BASIRA**

They almost came to blows over how Jim made his tea.

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes, _okay_ , but maybe if we _tell_ Jim in advance not to brew the same tea bag five times before throwing it out, we can avoid that this time.

**BASIRA**

You know he likes it that way. Jim's really vocal about the “joys of the fifth brew”. ( _weighted pause_ ) So that would leave Daisy with...?

**ARCHIVIST**

I was thinking we could put her in with Philomena? She's been eager for more stuff to do after we had to cut her homeopathy business.

**BASIRA**

( _shudder_ ) Yeah, well. I get the sense that she wouldn't last long with Daisy.

**ARCHIVIST**

She's _very_ good at being frustratingly obtuse.

**BASIRA**

That's not what I'm saying. ( _beat_ ) I'm saying Daisy will rip her throat out by the end of the week, if we even get that far.

**ARCHIVIST**

... you're probably right. I'm just -

**BASIRA**

Overthinking it?

**ARCHIVIST**

I'm not -

**BASIRA**

All I'm saying is, this doesn't have to be that difficult. If the problem is that Daisy and Martin figure out that things aren't right because they aren't attracted to people of the same gender, we could just tell them soulmates don't have to be romantic.

**ARCHIVIST**

Well, b-but that's -

**BASIRA**

( _smug_ ) Probably going to work? Yeah, I reckon.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _thoughtful, slowly warming to the idea_ ) Platonic soulmates ... yes, I suppose...

**BASIRA**

Good luck, Jon.

**ARCHIVIST**

Thank you, Basira.

**BASIRA**

You're welcome.

[DING!]

**ARCHIVIST**

... Postmortem ends.

[CLICK.]

**POSTMORTEM, SEVENTY-FOURTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

[...] Matching Martin and Daisy while stressing that the soulmate bond is platonic seems to have worked.

[RELIEVED EXHALE FOLLOWED BY A SELF-DEPRECIATING LAUGH.]

After all the attempts, it was so _easy_...

We still had to restart, of course, but we made it through a full month, and the failure had nothing to do with the soulmate arrangement.

[SHUFFLE OF PAPERS.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

So what went wrong this time? We got Nikola in for some consulting, and she went ... rather overboard on the clowns. Should probably not ask her for a repeat performance. ( _he realises that makes a pun_ ) Hah! Well. In any case, we should have sorted out the remaining baseline issues, and the clowns should be easy to avoid.

Postmortem ends.

**POSTMORTEM, HUNDED AND THIRTY SEVENTH ITERATION.**

[DOOR SLAMS OPEN.]

**BASIRA**

Jon –

**ARCHIVIST**

( _seething_ ) _Who_ let the giant crab in? _What - why -_ for what _possible_ reason - 

**MICHAEL/HELEN**

Hello, Archivist.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _yelps_ ) You - how did you get in here?

**MICHAEL/HELEN**

We found a shortcut. How did you like our present?

**ARCHIVIST**

A _giant crab_? That doesn't even - this isn't even your department!

**MICHAEL/HELEN**

( _laugh_ ) Oh, Archivist ... you know we can never pass up a little harmless fun.

**BASIRA**

( _under her breath_ ) Or harm _ful_ fun.

**ARCHIVIST**

Harmless? _Harmless?_

[MICHAEL/HELEN KEEP LAUGHING.]

**BASIRA**

( _quiet warning_ ) Jon.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _deep breath_ ) I know, I know. Michael, Helen. Is there anything else you wanted, or are you just here to ruin our hard work?

**MICHAEL/HELEN**

So unfriendly. ( _mocking sigh_ ) No, we just thought we'd stop by ... see the show ... watch the plan unfold...

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes. Well. Now that you've seen it, I suggest you leave.

**MICHAEL/HELEN**

Oh, Archivist, you really are no fun.

**ARCHIVIST**

Don't make me get Elias.

**MICHAEL/HELEN**

Fine, fine. Don't be so down you end up underground, now. ( _laugh)_

[SOUND OF A DOOR OPENING.]

**MICHAEL/HELEN (CONT'D)**

See you soon, Archivist!

[SOUND OF A DOOR CLOSING.]

**BASIRA**

( _drily_ ) That went well.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _irritated sigh_ ) Right.

[A CHAIR IS PUSHED BACK; THE ARCHIVIST SITS DOWN.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to record this disaster of a postmortem.

**BASIRA**

Sure, Jon.

[DING!]

[SHUFFLING OF PAPERS.]

**ARCHIVIST**

Postmortem, one hundred and thirty-seventh iteration. Statement of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

The –

[MARTIN KNOCKS ON THE DOORFRAME.]

**MARTIN**

Hi, excuse me?

**ARCHIVIST**

_Ahh_!

[SOUND OF CHAIR HITTING THE FLOOR.]

**MARTIN**

Oh my God, I'm – ( _rapid footsteps_ ) I'm so sorry!

**ARCHIVIST**

N-no, uh, how, how much of that did you … hear?

**MARTIN**

… you said … the bad place? What's – ?

**ARCHIVIST**

( _upset, tired laughter_ ) Of course. _Great._

**MARTIN**

What's going on?

**ARCHIVIST**

I'm sorry about this, Martin.

**MARTIN**

How do you know my – ?

[THE ARCHIVIST SNAPS HIS FINGERS.]

**POSTMORTEM, TWO HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH TO TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH ITERATION.**

[…]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Over the past sixteen iterations, I have been trying to spend more time with the humans one on one. While it tends to make them realise what we are trying to do here sooner, I still believed … I still _believe_ that it is necessary. It has become apparent that I … lack the insight I need to make this project last for a longer period of time. There have been too many reboots. I thought that if I could get to know the humans better – if I could figure out how they _work_ – we would have a better shot at making this go smoothly.

I should have thought of it sooner. I suppose I did not want to admit to myself that I did not have this all under control. ( _derisive)_ As though the lack of acknowledgement could keep us safe from repercussions from Upper Management if this little experiment goes wrong. Martin –

 _Anyway._ I started with Tim. While he was initially cheerful and … _charming_ , things began to deteriorate when he found me in the bushes behind the house he shares with Melanie. Nothing appeared to appease him afterwards. If anything, he became more aggressive when I attempted to talk to him about it. Any attempt to smooth it over only made him angrier, until … well.

I am not keen to repeat it.

Still, if nothing else, the whole farce has made it very clear that Timothy Stoker must be handled with care. A similar approach might be useful in making him more _miserable,_ but I don't trust myself to have a light enough touch to make him miserable without also making him _hostile_.

[SHUFFLING OF PAPERS.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

The iterations where I focused my attentions on Daisy were … also difficult. I believe she views me as a threat even when she _doesn't_ know about the extent of our deception. On multiple occasions, I would attempt to shadow her only to find _her_ following _me._ She also frequently threatened to stab me, and in one iteration attempted to slit my throat with a bread knife.

[HE SHUDDERS.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

As for Melanie … ( _shuffling papers_ ) Depending on how I approach her, she is either distantly cordial or bitingly sarcastic. I have yet to be able to have any kind of interaction with her I would consider _warm_ , but on a few different occasions I did manage to have conversations with her I believe she grudgingly enjoyed.

Like Tim, she reacted badly to discovering me following her. Where Tim expressed his displeasure verbally, Melanie took a rather more _physical_ approach.

… ( _heh_ ) At least she didn't try to slit my throat.

[SOUND OF DRINKING.]

[SHUFFLING OF PAPERS.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Martin is, ah. ( _clears throat_ ) Martin is the easiest to deal with of the four. I didn't, ah, it took me a while to realise. I was too hung up on him finding out about what was really going on so quickly, I suppose.

I suppose it was _simpler_ if he was just an annoyance, just a calculation whose numbers I could adjust and manipulate until the answer fit what I needed.

But he's more than that, isn't he? They all are. I keep trying to, to reduce them down to their essentials so that I can secure the better outcome, but I don't – I'm not even sure if I know what the better outcome _is_ anymore. It is becoming increasingly difficult to, to stay objective. To not falter in my assigned task.

( _desperate laugh_ ) I can't afford to fail. The cost is –

[INHALE.]

In every iteration, Martin is cordial. He is easy to talk to. He is, is _kind._ Even when I can taste the lies on him, that kindness still feels sincere. He talks to spiders in a ridiculously gentle way, and when an iteration lasts longer than a couple of days, he often starts to bring me tea.

I, I'm reasonably sure the tea is an attempt to get closer to me to pump me for information. Still. In every iteration that lasts long enough, he will slowly adjust the way he makes it until it tastes right.

I, ah, I. There is a certain strangeness in l-learning to know people like this, when they are constantly forgetting you. Every new iteration is another chance to make things right. I should be grateful for the opportunities it gives us, I suppose, but –

It shouldn't hurt like this. I almost wonder if –

But that's ridiculous.

( _dry laugh_ ) I … this experiment-in-an-experiment has given me a little more insight into what the humans are like, I suppose.

I hope it was worth it.

Postmortem ends.

[CLICK.]

**POSTMORTEM, TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVENTH ITERATION.**

[...]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

Sasha.

[DING!]

**SASHA**

Yes, Jon?

**ARCHIVIST**

Could you get me some tea?

[SOUND OF A MUG OF TEA APPEARING.]

**SASHA**

Here you go.

**ARCHIVIST**

Thank you, Sasha.

**SASHA**

No problem. ( _beat_ ) You know, I was talking to Melanie -

**ARCHIVIST**

Don't.

**SASHA**

_I was talking to Melanie_ , and she said –

**ARCHIVIST**

_(sharp) Sasha._ We cannot afford to get compromised. You need to let go of anything they did outside of the current iteration.

**SASHA**

... ( _disbelief)_ _Really,_ Jon?

**ARCHIVIST**

( _testy_ ) I need to record this postmortem.

**SASHA**

( _annoyed_ ) Oh, I'll just leave, then, shall I?

**ARCHIVIST**

( _stiff)_ Please.

[DING!]

[THE ARCHIVIST SIPS THE TEA.]

[THERE IS A SOUND LIKE FABRIC SHIFTING.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

( _to himself_ ) Can never get the taste right.

[SIGH.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)**

All right.

Postmortem, two hundred and fifty-seventh iteration. Statement of Jonathan Sims, the Archi –

**ELIAS**

Hello, Jon.

**ARCHIVIST**

_Ahh!_

[THE MUG SHATTERS.]

**ARCHIVIST**

E-Elias...

**ELIAS**

Shame about that cup.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _stiff_ ) I'm sure Sasha can deal with it.

**ELIAS**

And how _are_ your assistants doing? Helping you keep the experiment running optimally?

**ARCHIVIST**

Oh, they're fine. ( _cautious_ ) They are both doing excellent work here.

**ELIAS**

Lovely. ( _beat)_ Jon –

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes?

**ELIAS**

I have been listening to your … “postmortems”, and I couldn't help but notice that there are rather a lot of them.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _clears throat_ ) Yes, well. We have had a few minor hiccups, but I believe we are at a point where they should no longer be an issue.

**ELIAS**

I see. ( _deliberate pause_ ) See that it isn't, Jon. These constant restarts are a waste of our resources. Any more, and we might risk the termination of this project.

**ARCHIVIST**

Y-yes, Elias.

**ELIAS**

Just to make it absolutely clear to you: That means no more restarts after this one. Understood?

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes, Elias.

**ELIAS**

Good. Just do it right, and you have nothing to worry about. We don't want this to reach upper management, do we?

**ARCHIVIST**

No, it's – I have it under control.

**ELIAS**

Good. Now, if you'll excuse me –

[A SOUND LIKE FABRIC SHIFTING.]

[THE ARCHIVIST EXHALES.]

**ARCHIVIST**

( _to himself_ ) Gone.

[CHAIR CREAKS.]

( _muffled_ ) Right. ( _wearier_ ) _Right._


	4. #258

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang makes a plan.

“I think this is the Bad Place,” Martin said.

It felt strange to finally put it into words. The thought had been lingering at the back of his mind all week, like grit getting stuck in the gears of some inelegant machinery. He'd been turning them over, all the pieces of this place that didn't quite _fit_ , and it all left him with a single conclusion that made sense.

Even if it sounded daft.

A series of groans rose from the couch. Martin pushed himself away from the counter island of Daisy and his kitchen, getting ready to defensively stammer through his argument. He'd thought it over last night, as Daisy whimpered in her sleep next to him, mentally writing out the list in tidy, even bullet points, over and over until he passed out somewhere around four in the morning.

Before he could launch into it, however, Tim spoke.

“I hate that that makes sense,” he said. Next to him, Melanie buried her face in her hands and laughed.

“Yeah,” she said. “It really feels like you might be right.”

“ _Fork_ ,” Daisy hissed, teeth bared in a way that was honestly a bit scary.

Martin stared at them, feeling a bit like he'd missed a step at the end of a staircase. “Really? Just like that?”

“Been here for a week,” Daisy said. “Clearly _something_ 's off. Might as well be this.”

“So what's the plan, boss?” Tim asked, giving Martin an awful smile.

“Wh- I'm not,” Martin said.

“Maybe not,” Tim said, “but I don't think anyone here's super qualified, and you seem a bit more level-headed than … some of us –”

“ _Hey,_ ” Melanie said, shoving him.

Tim shoved her back. “- okay, Melanie, don't tell me your first instinct wasn't to look into whether murdering Jon would solve this somehow.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “ _Look_ ,” she said, “I wasn't _going_ to.”

“All I'm saying,” Tim said, “is that maybe it would be better to have someone in charge of planning whose first instinct isn't violence – sorry, Daisy –”

“None taken.”

“– and I'm not doing it.”

“Hang on,” Martin said, glaring at him. “Why _not_?”

“Not really “leadership material”, me,” Tim said, with audible air quotes. "So you're it."

“I've – I don't – _me?_ ” Martin sputtered.

"I'm not going to blindly do what he says," Daisy muttered. Martin shot her a look that was somewhere between affronted and grateful. He wasn't entirely sure which was closer.

"We don't need a leader," he said, to stave off the mounting panic that was starting to crawl up his windpipe. "We just need to be, to be _smart_ about this."

"I'm going to guess you mean no stabbing anyone?" Melanie said.

"That would be ... good?" Martin said. "Unless it's self defence, obviously."

"Obviously," Tim said, only a little sarcastically.

"Look," Martin said, "just because we're probably in the Bad Place -"

"Definitely in the Bad Place," said Melanie.

"- yeah, well, still!” Martin said, gesturing a little wildly. “We probably shouldn't let on that we know unless we _have_ to."

Which was only a _little_ hypocritical. He'd said it out loud when he realised, but to be fair, the shock of the realisation had kind of knocked his verbal filter out of commission for a bit.

And he'd been alone. That made it better.

Anyway, he was usually pretty good at lying. He was pretty sure it wouldn't happen again.

"Good time for some recon, I suppose," said Daisy, thoughtfully tapping her chin. "Find out what we can from them and use it to our advantage later."

"We can't know for sure how many people in the neighbourhood are - demons? Let's just say demons," Melanie said, "and we don't really have the resources to figure it out, but we've enough people to cover Jon, Basira, and Sasha. We can stay close to them and see if they let anything slip."

Tim leaned forward to pat Martin awkwardly on the knee. He had to stretch a little longer than what looked comfortable to do it.

“You've had the most contact with Jon so far," he said, "which makes you _slightly_ more equipped to handle ... whatever's going on with that miserable barscar." He paused, with a small laugh. " _Barscar_. That's a _weird_ one."

"I'll deal with Basira," Daisy said. There was a hint of a growl in her voice, and a mildly terrifying glint in her eye.

"That leaves me and Tim with Sasha," said Melanie. "Cheers."

"Cheers," said Tim, leaning back from patting Martin's knee. They high-fived from opposite ends of the couch.

Martin cleared his throat and shifted, smoothing down the edge of his shirt. “So … everyone in agreement, then?”

“Looks like it,” said Daisy.

“Great!” said Martin, with more brightness than he felt. “Great.”

-

Which was how he found himself knocking on the door to Jon's office with his elbow, trying to balance two cups of tea at the same time. He had put them together himself, foregoing a visit to HIGHER GROUND in favour of stealing teabags from the small kitchenette of the administrative building where Jon seemed to spend most of his time. It had bought him some time, bought him a little bit of steadiness, that act of … of getting the mugs out, of boiling the water, of putting the bags in and waiting.

It was just nice to have done something, even if it wasn't a big or complicated thing.

The kitchenette did not seem to get used much. Every cabinet door had a bit of a showroom squeak to it, as though the area was just supposed to _look_ right, rather than actually be used. There was no milk or sugar anywhere, either, just a small kettle and a packet of off-brand black tea.

Martin supposed that, if they were all dead or … whatever Jon and Basira and Sasha were, they probably technically didn't _need_ to eat or drink.

Still. It had all been a bit creepy.

“Yes?” came Jon's voice from inside his office. Martin pushed his thoughts aside and the door open.

Jon was sitting at his desk, hunching over a stack of papers. He didn't look like a monster, or a demon. He didn't even look particularly _evil_ , as far as people went.

More than anything, he just looked tired.

Tired and sad.

It made Martin feel … something.

Sympathy, maybe, despite himself.

“Oh,” Jon said, surprised, “Martin.”

“Hey,” Martin said, and immediately felt desperately awkward about it. “I, uh, got tea. If you have a bit of time.”

Jon stared at him. He looked a little stunned.

“I, ah, yes,” he said after a beat, and sat up a little straighter. “Yes, of course. Come in.”

Martin handed Jon a cup and then hovered helplessly next to Jon's desk, clutching his own cup like a shield.

“Feel free to sit,” said Jon.

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” said Martin, and did so. Jon kept looking at him, little, furtive glances over the rim of his mug, like Martin was upsetting the laws of … whatever this place was by being here. Like he was _nervous_ , which really didn't make sense at all.

Unless he thought Martin was onto him about this being the Bad Place. Martin hid his face behind his own mug. That didn't really make any sense, either, he told himself, unless Jon could read minds or something, which was.

Ridiculous. Of course it was, it was _silly_ , and sitting here and thinking about it, or any suspicions Jon might or might not have while he was sitting _right in front of him_ was a really, really bad move.

Martin sipped his tea and tried to keep his thoughts from spiralling, which was a bit of a losing battle at the best of times, but if he could shift it, if he could think about anything else, like, like the tea, which was pretty inoffensive, but almost criminally bland compared to any other tea he'd had in the Good – in the neighbourhood so far. He'd oversteeped it a bit, and it was just a touch too bitter to be _good_ , even if the blend had been fancier.

Jon didn't seem to mind.

“Thank you,” he said eventually, like he'd just remembered that saying thank you was a thing people did. “For the tea.”

“It was nothing,” said Martin. He couldn't help laughing a little. “It's not like it's a big thing. I didn't even put any milk or sugar in.”

Jon set the mug carefully down on the desk. “It's not nothing,” he said, horribly earnest.

“Well,” said Martin, wrong-footed. “I, um, I just wanted to ...”

He didn't know how to finish the sentence. He didn't know how to say anything, because Jon was looking at him, and Martin couldn't read the look on his face, but whatever he was feeling was all there, out in the open, inscribed in his wide eyes, in the twist of his mouth, in the way his eyebrows pulled together –

It was like trying to read a book in a language he'd barely learned the alphabet of, stumbling over words and phrases he could almost recognise.

“Just wanted to what?” Jon asked, so intensely it felt almost like a physical touch, pressing palms and fingers against Martin's chest, skin and blood and ribs.

Martin suppressed a shudder. He knew what he _should_ say, had thought about it on loop since he'd left the house, repeating it over and over until the words started to run together and lose their meaning. Unbidden, the truth shoved the words aside, assembling in neat lines and ready to fall out of his mouth. He could already feel it, the promise of vomiting up a string of pearls, the threat of his muscles moving in the wrong pattern.

He bit the tip of his tongue, hard enough for it to hurt. He hissed at the sting, but it seemed to have done the trick, because he no longer felt like saying anything. Jon blinked at him, startled.

“Ah, I, I,” he managed, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – ”

“It's fine,” Martin said, though he wasn't sure if it was true. He pressed the tip of his tongue against his teeth, and breathed out. “It's just, I'm a bit embarrassed?”

Jon gave a surprised little almost-laugh. “ _Embarrassed?”_

“Y-yeah,” Martin said, and felt about as defensive as he would have if what he was about to say had been true, for reasons he didn't really want to look into. “It's just, it's great here? It really is! But I also feel kind of … useless? There isn't really anything to _do_ here, so … I guess I was just wondering if, um, if there's anything you'd like me to help you with? Like filing papers or, or making tea, or … ?”

He trailed off. Jon was staring at him, mouth slightly open. Somewhere, a clock was ticking; it was painfully loud in the silence.

Martin cleared his throat. “It, it wouldn't have to be a lot. I just … I just want to be _useful,_ you know?”

“I … see,” Jon said slowly. “That's a new one.”

“What?”

“What?”

“A new one?”

Jon glared into his mug. Finally, he said, “Most people in the Good Place are perfectly happy with what we give them.”

“Sorry,” Martin said on reflex.

“No.” Jon sighed, shoulders slumping. “That's on me. Frankly, Martin, I'm beginning to suspect that I may be bad at this job.”

And what was there to say to that? _Yes, probably, because if you were competent we probably wouldn't have figured out that this is_ definitely _not the Good Place? It's good that you're bad at this or you'd have had us horribly tortured for trying to get one over you already?_

Martin laughed awkwardly. “I'm pretty sure that's not true.”

“Isn't it?” Jon asked. “If I can't even keep _one human_ entertained for two weeks – ”

 _Like that isn't part of it_ , Martin thought, with a hot pulse of anger. An eternity of, of _this_ , of going to cafés all day and sleeping next to Daisy every night, of stupid _community events_ made up purely to make them suffer in small, miserable ways, of pretending constantly to be a different Martin Blackwood who probably didn't even _exist_ , of never doing anything even remotely _useful_ –

“Well,” he said, a little tartly, “all the more reason to let me help you.”

Jon gave him a deer-in-headlights look. “I – I suppose.”

“Great,” said Martin, and got up. He felt a little sick. “That's settled, then. I'll be back tomorrow morning.”

He turned and walked out of Jon's office. Behind him, Jon was still trying to assemble enough words to make a full sentence.

-

He was still thinking about it as he got ready for bed, frowning at himself in the mirror while brushing his teeth. There was no reason to be so angry, he thought, brushing viciously.

Thinking it didn't make him any _less_ angry.

Daisy knocked on the half-open door and poked her head into the bathroom. “How'd it go?”

Martin spat toothpaste into the sink. He ran the tap and rinsed out his mouth before he turned to look at Daisy. She was leaning up against the door frame with her arms crossed, wearing a Garfield t-shirt and a pair of grey boxers.

“Great _,_ ” Martin said, a little too forcefully.

Daisy raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Martin bristled.

“He agreed to let me help out,” he said. “It worked out fine.”

“Okay,” said Daisy.

“I even felt sorry for him for a second, you know?” Martin put down the toothpaste and stepped out of the bathroom like a perfectly normal, perfectly calm person. “He just looked so _tired_ and _sad_ , and I guess I'm an easy mark because for a moment I forgot that his _job_ is probably to _torture us?_ ”

Daisy snorted, following him past the living room and into the bedroom. “Guess we're lucky he's shit at it.”

“At least if he was good at it I'd feel less weird about it,” Martin muttered, shoving the covers of their horrible bed to the side. Daisy laughed. It wasn't an entirely nice laugh.

They crawled into bed, which was a bit of a challenge. The bedroom was technically not its own room, but was separated from the rest of the house by a free-standing wall. Beyond the wall, the ceiling sloped dramatically, creating a space that was both claustrophobic and also impossible for Martin to stand up straight in. The double bed was just a little too small in every direction, and set into a sunken pit in the floor that left no room for limbs to escape during the night. Martin would have taken the couch instead, but it, too, was slightly too small, and the seats were built at an angle that made sleeping on them impossible.

It was a bed that invited both accidental cuddling and accidental interpersonal injury, and Martin had seen his share of both in the time since they had woken up in the neighbourhood.

When they finally got settled, the lights in the room turned off by themselves. Martin stared up at the ceiling. He couldn't see it, of course, but he could feel it; the lack of space pressed down on them like a physical thing.

“... How did it go with Basira?” he asked. He felt Daisy shifting in the dark next to him.

“Don't trust her,” Daisy said. “She's being a bit too … friendly. Acting like she knows me.” She inhaled sharply. “Don't like it.”

Martin thought about Jon, giving him that painfully earnest look, thanking him for the objectively terrible tea.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I can get that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://aibari.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/aibari).


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